


Strangers

by Arvak



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Stiles, Just a Very Sad Story, M/M, Peter Hale is a Little Bad at Feelings, Pre-Slash, Sad middle, Scott Dies, Tragedy, sad beginning, sad end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 21:16:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20823935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arvak/pseuds/Arvak
Summary: "Beware of the strangers that lurk around you. They aredangerous." It's a parent's favorite thing to say. It's one of those things ingrained into the brain of every young kid, and it usually follows them all the way to adulthood, can even follow them to the grave. But Stiles knows that it's never the strangers you have to worry about.It's the people you're closest to that have the capacity to hurt you the most.-He listened to Chris yelling through the bug in the warehouse, listened to a dangerous growl rip from Derek's chest, listened to Peter scream for his nephew. Stiles watched Scott lift his hand, watched his claws fly towards Derek's bared throat... He pulled the trigger without even realizing what was happening. He stared through his scope, breathless, for as long as it took for Scott's body slump to the ground, motionless, until it finally set in. He had just killed his best friend. Hisbrother.He rolled away from his sniper andscreamed.





	Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> I have a Wattpad account! Check out my short stories over there. They're lonely and yearning for the gentle caress of your eyes as you read!  
https://www.wattpad.com/user/Arvak_Fenrir
> 
> Okay, I'll admit that was a little creepy... Don't worry 'bout it.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

"Beware of the strangers that lurk around you. They are _dangerous_."

It's a parent's favorite thing to say. It's one of those things ingrained into the brain of every young kid, and it usually follows them all the way to adulthood, can even follow them to the grave. It's also a thing he'd never heard his mother say to him.

All around school when he was little and she was still alive, he'd hear of his classmates talking about how their mother or father scolded them for talking to strangers. Some of them even got grounded, which, as a young kid, was world-breaking. He'd hear his classmates tell tales of parental shouts of warning from the ice cream man, a woman in the store, the dog-walker who invites you to pet their dog. It seemed like everywhere you turned there was someone to be scared of.

Stiles had gone up to his mom one day after school, no taller than the kitchen counters, and asked why she'd never warned him away from strangers. He told her that all of his schoolmates were scared of them. Everyone on the streets was someone that could hurt you, they'd said. She had set her hand in his hair and crouched down in front of him with a smile that could light up the dark side of the moon. "Some of the strangers you'll meet will end up becoming the love of your life," she said with a voice of wonder and love. "Why would I tell you to fear the ones that could one day be your reason to wake up in the morning?"

It had seemed so strange, at that age, to look around and see every parent in the world telling their kids something but having your own mother telling you the exact opposite. Stiles was no idiotic child. He knew that his parents weren't all-knowing, not like some kids did. He knew that evidence spoke louder than the murmurings of even his greatest hero.

He'd looked to his dad and watched what strangers did to him. He'd come back hurt, sometimes. Stressed. He'd pick up a drink and cry, all because of strangers.

Yet, still, his mother insisted that not everyone was to be feared.

After she died and his dad took over as Stiles' sole parent, he warned Stiles of strangers the same way the rest of the parents of the world did, saying they could bring hurt. Enough hurt to ruin a life.

Stiles, now 18 and full of more knowledge than anyone should ever have to bear, knows that it's never the strangers you have to worry about.

It's the people you're closest to that have the capacity to hurt you the most.

-

Stiles stared down at the lights along the roads, buildings, cars. He swore if he let himself drift far enough into daydream, the lights looked like fire, and his hometown was in flames.

He wrapped his arms around his legs, cold and shivering but still unwilling to move, and he blinked away tears. Not ugly, sobbing tears; it was just this constant stream of sadness. It dripped down his cheeks, over his lips, off of his chin. Every drop that made it to the dirt at his feet felt like a meteor hitting the Earth.

He sniffed and wrapped around himself tighter. He'd been watching the dark, angry rain clouds build in the sky, curiously only over the confines of Beacon Hills. He figured it was the Nemeton's doing. Finally, rain drops began to join his tears on the ground around him. Because that was the only thing that could've made this more miserable.

Behind him, he heard footsteps approaching. _No use caring_, he thought. _If it was someone coming to hurt me, then so be it. I wouldn't care._

The footsteps stopped just inches behind him and Stiles could feel the wafting of unnatural body heat. Then, a hot, heavy, black leather jacket settled on his shoulders. Stiles ducked his head and pressed his forehead against his knees as the leather-jacket-wearer sat beside him on the rock.

When he looked up, he expected Derek, if only because of the leather jacket. But the gorgeous man sitting beside him, staring out at the town with twinkling eyes was Peter. They sat in companionable silence for what felt like years while the rain got heavier, soaking them. Neither of them cared.

Peter eventually took a breath and said, jokingly, "I never knew you could operate a sniper so well."

Stiles' shaking, then, had nothing to do with the cold. His blood immediately ran hot and rage filled up every fiber of his being. He gritted his teeth and glared over at the apathetic asshole, spitting, "_You're really going to do this?!_" He sucked in a breath and it sounded wet. "_You're really going to joke about this?!_"

He didn't answer and Stiles seethed at the side of his face. He gritted his teeth hard enough to hurt when Peter looked over at him with the heavy expression of _real_ sympathy. "I'm sorry."

"Shut the fuck up." Stiles looked away from him and choked back a sob as more tears flowed down his cheeks. He shook, and shook, and continued shaking. The jacket's warmth was disappearing and the cold rain soaked through his hair, shirt, pants, shoes. He was drenched in rain, sat out on a rock in the wind on a cold autumn night. It was awful.

"Scott always undervalued you, though. He truly deserved it."

Stiles grabbed the leather jacket and threw it as hard as he could at the asshole beside him. "_God!_ You're _incapable _of understanding human emotions!" Peter pulled the jacket off of his head and stared at him. "Scott was sometimes thickheaded, but he _never_ deserved to die!"

"He was trying to get his _Alpha buddies_ to capture and kill me and Derek," Peter said, voice stern and angry. His eyes flashed blue. "I don't see how that is in any way simply disregarded as _'thickheaded'_. It was, in any case, _homicidal_."

Stiles opened his mouth, breath shaking as his thoughts fell back into the terrifying rut that he'd been trying to keep them out of.

Scott had been secretly meeting with a group of Alphas, kind of like the Alpha pack but without the actual pack aspect, who had promised him protection and sanctuary and knowledge and power. For some reason, he thought it would be okay to tell them about Derek and Peter. He thought it would be okay to knowingly help them capture them. He thought it would be okay to walk up to Derek with his claws to his throat, and tell him that it was all for the best. "You're not the best Alpha, anyway," Scott had said. And he had said it. Stiles had been listening in on the bugs that Chris had placed in the warehouse. "This way, I'll be stronger and we won't need you. It's the best thing for the Betas. It _is_ Derek. You have to see that."

Scott had sounded psychotic. It had terrified Stiles so much that he was stunned into stillness while Chris and the rest of the Betas, hidden in the shadows around the warehouse waiting for the time to strike, had burst out and attacked Scott while his claws were raised and ready to tear through Derek's throat.

Scott had fought them. And Stiles had to watch him through the scope of his sniper on the top of the building across the abandoned street. He had to watch his best friend since childhood nearly kill Erica before Boyd could take the blow that was meant for her throat. Boyd got hurt, but not nearly as bad as Isaac who had gotten his stomach ripped open and a hard hit to the head that had ended up knocking him unconscious, and hasn't woken up since. Chris had tried to talk to him, aiming his gun in warning, but Scott had ignored him and turned to Derek, grabbing his hair and wrenching his head back. He had listened to Chris yelling, had listened to a dangerous growl rip from Derek's chest, had listened to Peter scream for his nephew. Stiles had watched Scott lift his hand, had watched his claws fly towards Derek's bared throat.

He had pulled the trigger without even realizing what was happening.

He stared through his scope, breathless, for as long as it took for Scott's body slump to the ground, motionless, until it finally set in.

He had just killed his best friend. His _brother_.

He rolled away from his sniper and _screamed_. He screamed until Chris had made his way all the way into the building he was on top of and wrapped his arms around him, shushing him and trying to soothe him.

That was last night. All of that was just last night.

He still couldn't believe it had happened. An entire life of _Stiles-and-Scott_ and now he's gone. By Stiles' hand, no less. It felt like the ultimate betrayal. Stiles killed Scott, the one person on the world that wasn't blood that he considered family. And why?

Because Scott was trying to kill Derek and Peter?

No, he wouldn't do that.

But he _did_. And that's the problem. Scott did something Stiles never would've imagined he'd do, and it cost him his life. But did it _have_ to? Stiles could've let him kill Derek, and then what? He'd still be alive... But Derek would be dead, and Scott would be strung out on Alpha power and... maybe he would've had to kill him anyway?

But _why?_ _Why did he make Stiles have to kill him?_

Stiles let out a sob, then, and felt like he was crumbling. "I just don't understand." Peter opened his mouth, but then shut it with a heavy frown. "_Why_ did he do that?"

Peter shook his head with a weak shrug. "Power controls the weak-minded-..." Stiles' face pulled into something pained and Peter stopped, looking away for a moment, then sighed and scooted closer to Stiles. He wrapped his arm around his shoulders and pulled him against his side. Stiles wanted to fight it, but he didn't for a second. "I'm sorry..." He took a short pause and said softly, "When I killed Laura, I wasn't thinking clearly at the time. But after I got my sanity back - what was left, at least-..." A longer pause. "_It hurt_."

Stiles closed his eyes and squeezed out the rest of the tears, but more still followed.

"It hurt more than anything I'd ever experienced... I _loved_ her, but I killed her." Peter's low rumble broke off into a subsonic whine that Stiles never would've heard if he wasn't so close to his chest. Stiles bit his bottom hip to avoid letting out a sound of anguish of his own to answer. "Killing people - that's one thing. Killing _your _people, though..."

Peter trailed off, but his last words wrung loudly in Stiles' head, echoing infinitely along with the memory of watching Scott's body fall. He never remembered pulling the trigger. He never remembered the loud sound of the gun going off, never even remembered the kickback (though he had the bruise to prove it happened). He just remembered watching his best friend ruthlessly tear through his other friends, then actively try to kill Derek - the person solely responsible for keeping all of them alive for so long.

He just remembered his best friend falling, hitting the ground, and never moving again. Laying there in time stood still without breath, without life.

Dead.

_"Killing people - that's one thing..."_

_**"**Killing** your **people, though..."_

Finally, Stiles let out the sounds he had been holding back, the wretched, agonizing cries of anguish that tore from Stiles' chest like a monster of pain and sorrow trying to claw its way out.

He allowed himself to break apart, crumbling down into ash like a bridge packed with C4, the rubble and dirt getting swept away down the river below, leaving nothing left to hope to rebuild. And Peter stayed.

He stayed, and he held Stiles together while he broke apart in his arms.

**Author's Note:**

> What? Every once in a while, a character with any hope of being a complete work of perfection must be lifted to their highest of highs before dropped to their lowest of lows. We've all seen the highs. The lows are a necessary part of the process of a character taking a solid place in a universe.
> 
> Poor Stiles though... Damn. I'm sorry, dude.


End file.
